How do I 'pan' the camera around an axis for an animation?
Another trick that might help is to track the camera to a target.

If you have a specific object you want to orbit around and the motion doesn't have to be absolutely circular then you can add a Track To constraint to the camera with the object in question as your target. If you keep Space as World Space &lt;-> World Space, you'll want to switch the Up: to Y and the To: to -Z.

Instead of directly tracking to the object in question you could add an empty of course, and make sure the empty is where it should be. You then can move the camera freely around, it will keep tracking its target. Set your key frames for camera location where you need them, rotation is handled by the Track To constraint, keeping the camera trained on its target.

The quick way to do this is to first select your target, then Shift + select your camera. Shift + Ctrl + C will give you a constraint popup, select Track To. The first selected target will be automatically assigned the target for your constraint.